


Broku no John

by madokamagikarps



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe, BroJohn - Freeform, Homestuck - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:57:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madokamagikarps/pseuds/madokamagikarps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John moves in with Dave, he gets to know Bro better than he'd expected, especially with Dave always out attending to his 'DJ-ing duties'.  However, when Dave starts to suspect something going on between his best friend and his older brother, he's not happy to say the least.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i got bored waiting for all the brojohn fics to update so i started writing my own. there will be eventual smut if i continue writing this i (don't) promise.

You scowl at the empty suitcase on your bed, packing things in and then digging them out again when you decide you don't need them. You're moving in with Dave tomorrow and the nerves are starting to kick in. You're not nervous about seeing Dave, oh no, it's the thought of seeing his older brother that's had you biting your nails for the past few days. It's not that Bro Strider is particularly intimidating. In fact, he's never even been mean to you in the slightest. You just find yourself growing anxious of meeting the older Strider since the last time you'd seen him had been when you were fourteen, three years ago. The problem was that you'd had the biggest crush on him since you even knew you liked guys, and it kind of grew when Dave showed you pictures of him in compromising positions on his puppet-porn site for a joke.

Your suitcase finally packed, albeit messily, you lounge lazily on your bed, and look up at the ceiling, letting yourself drift into unconsciousness and dreams of Dave's attractive older brother. 

When you wake you groggily peer over at your alarm clock – you can’t see a thing. You groan and grab your glasses from your bedside table, unfolding them and placing them on the bridge of your nose. You try again. The time is 6:17am and your flight to Houston leaves in three hours – you want to get there for at least an hour before the plane leaves. Your stomach grumbles and you realize that you slept through the night and completely forgot about eating dinner. Why didn’t your dad wake you up!?

You drag yourself out of bed, slip on your fluffy slippers and head down stairs, scowling at the creepy clown figurines and pictures strewn around the house. You smell the cake before you see it, and you poke your head into the kitchen only to get a face full of vanilla sponge. This day is not off to a good start.

You wipe off your glasses and don’t give your dad the pleasure of knowing he got you good. 

“What’s for breakfast?” You mumble, vanilla sponge crumbs still stuck in your hair and eyebrows.

“You just ate breakfast,” he says, dancing around the kitchen.

You groan again and bury your head in your arms, “Daaaaaaaaaaad.”

Your dad gives a hearty laugh and ruffles your hair, “Kidding, son!” he sings and places a plate of bacon and fried eggs in front of you. You eye it hungrily before picking up your fork and scooping up some eggs. The rest doesn’t last two minutes.

Full up and smelling of vanilla, you go back upstairs to take a shower and brush your teeth, remembering to put your toothbrush back in your case. You comb through your wet hair with your fingers and grin, your overbite clearly showing – you don’t care. 

You are almost bouncing with excitement by the time your dad is packing your suitcase into the back of his car. You quickly dash upstairs and check your room to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything. You haven’t.

You are at the part of the airport where non-flyers aren’t allowed to come with you anymore, and you turn to your dad. He looks at you with a big smile, but you can see the sadness in his eyes.

“Well, son,” he says to you, “this is where I leave you.” He pulls you into a huge hug and pats your back.

“I’ll come back to see you at least twice a year dad!” You pat his back too, feeling tears prick at your eyes.

“Good,” he says, and pulls away from the hug, putting his hands on your shoulders and giving you a sad smile, “and don’t forget: no kissing girls!” He shouts, making sure everyone hears him. You feel your face heating up as a nearby group of girls giggle at you, but you grin and chuckle anyway.

“Yep dad,” you say, looking at your watch, “woah I’m going to be late!” You give your dad another short hug and say goodbye.

“Have fun, son!” He shouts as your back disappears.

The plane journey was not as bad as you’d thought, you slept through most of it and when you weren't asleep you were content just to look at the clouds and landscapes that swept by. 

You land in Houston and get yourself a cup of coffee. You remember that Dave’s bro is picking you up because Dave has some important DJ duties or something. You look for the guy you remember crushing on when you were fourteen; tall and muscular, black cap, leather fingerless gloves and those dumb pointy anime shades. 

You soon spot him lounging over two seats in the waiting area and your heart skips a beat. He looks exactly as you remember him, but not as tall as you remember – probably because you've grown so much. When he stands up to greet you, you realize that he’s actually only a few inches taller than you, but still enough to make you tilt your head up slightly.

“Hey, kid,” he says to you, “long time no see.” 

“Yeah, it’s been ages,” you agree, not knowing whether to put out your hand for a shake or something, but he decides to put you out of your misery and just takes two of your bags off you while you carry your suitcase. He begins to walk ahead and you kind of struggle to keep up with his pace with your suitcase trailing behind you, but he doesn’t seem to notice or slow down. 

You arrive at the Strider apartment after a long, awkward car journey with Bro. Bro helps you with your bags and asks if you’d like anything to drink. 

“Um, do you have any tea?” You ask, sitting down on the sofa and twiddling your thumbs.

“What do you think this is? A restaurant? No, we only have water or apple juice, kiddo” he replies, seeming to watch you closely, but you can’t really tell with his eyes behind shades. 

You glower at him; you hate it when he calls you 'kid' or 'kiddo'. “Oh, I'll have apple juice then.”

“No, that’s off limits,” he says flatly, “me and Dave only.”

“Fine,” you say, stroking one of the furry pillows that has somehow found its way into your lap, “I’ll have nothing then.”

“Fine, whatever, you can have apple juice,” Bro grumbles and within about thirty seconds he’s by your side again with a rather small, half-filled glass of juice, "I suppose you should get some privileges now that you're living in Casa del Strider." 

Bro sits next to you on the sofa, grabbing the remote and turning on the TV, flicking through channels until he finds Spongebob, he grins at you. You smile back and he quickly turns back to the screen, his poker face back in place. 

You hope Dave will be home soon because sitting alone with Bro is starting to make you feel a little uncomfortable. You are sure you can feel his eyes on you, but every time you peek at him from the corner of your eye all you see is his shades. Damn, you need to get a pair of them. 

You watch Spongebob with Bro for about an hour before you start to get impatient. You don't even really like Spongebob.

“Hey Bro?” You say, turning to face him. His head turns towards you so you know he’s listening. “How long is Dave going to be?”

“I dunno, kid,” he says, a slight smile on his face, “why?”

You swallow and shrug, turning away from his gaze, “I haven’t seen him in, like, three years.”

Bro stares at you for a while longer before turning back to the TV, you feel like a massive weight has been lifted off you. You don’t know why you feel so nervous around Bro – you’d stayed here before and not had any trouble with him. Now that you think about it, you and Bro had always gotten along well, even after your crush on him started. You realize the reason you suddenly feel so weird around Bro is because you are old enough to act on it. 

You peek at Bro from behind your glasses, but he’s still looking at the TV. You figure it’s safe to stare so you just sit there and admire him, what you would do for a body like that. You must spend a little too long with your eyes in his direction because when you move your gaze to his face he’s staring right at you. Shit. You quickly look away and pretend you were just looking idly around the room – you don’t think he fell for it. You quickly look back at him and his eyes are still on you, or at least his face is facing you, you can’t really tell for the shades. He has that small smile again, like he knows exactly what you’re thinking, and he finds it amusing. Oh wow, this is not how you wanted this to go.

You stumble for some sort of escape from your embarrassment, but you just end up stuttering out a few 'um's and 'uh's before coming out with a real sentence, “I’m just going to go unpack my stuff, Dave’s room, right?”

Bro nods, “Yup, unless you wanted to sleep in my room," he grins, but you ignore his comment, despite how fast it's making your heart beat, and scurry off to unpack your bags. .

You’re surprised how big Dave’s bedroom is, it can easily fit Dave’s bed and your mattress on the floor, and Dave still has enough room for all his stuff. You take as long as possible setting up and folding all your clothes to avoid having to sit with Bro again. You make the mistake of leaving the door open.

You finish folding your clothes and when you turn around Bro is leaning in the doorway observing you. You jump, your eyes widening and your heart almost escaping your chest. "Jesus Christ, Bro. You scared the shit out of me."

Bro smirks, “You look cute when you're scared,” he slouches in the doorway all cool and casual.

You take that comment in for a second, “Uh, thanks, I guess?” You say, not sure where he's going with this. Wait... is he flirting with you? You tell yourself that he definitely isn't. He's just messing with you like heterosexual males do, right? But neither of you are heterosexual, so-

Bro snaps you out of that train of thought and takes the words right out of your head. "Hey, chill out, kid, I'm just messing with ya," he says, leaning against the door frame with that smirk on his face and his hands in the pockets of his black sweatpants like some kind of model from a hot-dude calendar. There’s a gap between the waist-band of his pants and his white t-shirt which just adds to your frustration. He rocks back on his heels a for bit and doesn’t seem to be thinking about leaving, and you don’t move either. 

You break the silence, “Um... so... yeah." You aren’t usually lost for words but Bro seems to be your weak point when it comes to conversing. You try again, “Well, that’s me done, took quicker than I expected, haha, hell yeah!” Oh God, you sound like a complete moron.

On your way to the door you knock over a few things on Dave's shelf, which you pick up, trying to look as cool and composed as you possibly can while feeling like you're being baked in an oven. When you reach the door, with your face feeling like it might explode from being so hot, you find that Bro doesn't make any move whatsoever to let you through. You figure you could duck under his arm, but you’re not sure you’d fit through and it would be pretty embarrassing if you didn't. You meet his eyes through his shades, which makes small goosebumps prickle at your skin. He’s wearing a crooked smile that makes your heart skip a beat or two. He leans down towards you and your faces are only an inch away from each other; so close that you can feel his warm breath brush your chin and your eyes flutter shut expectantly. Nothing happens. 

You open your eyes, confused, and Bro moves his face away from yours, “Hah! You thought!” He says, with a smug smile on his face. He moves his arm to let you through and you groan and push past him. Wow, do you feel like an idiot.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> john spends some quality bonding time with bro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wooo yeah also themageofheart on tumblr helped me with this. also it's like double the length yeah man

You’re reluctant to face Bro the next day. After he made you look like an idiot yesterday you spent the rest of the day hiding out in Dave’s room playing video games alone, only coming out to get pizza and a whole carton of apple juice, just to piss Bro off. However, after an hour into the second day, you decide that the boredom of being alone in Dave's room is worse than anything that Bro might say to you, so you decide to brave it, like the badass prankster you are. 

You peek through the doorway and see Bro sitting in his usual spot on the sofa, his legs dangling over the armrest. You almost change your mind, but you make yourself walk over to where Bro is lounging. 

He peers up at you over his shades and you get a rare glimpse of his amber eyes, feeling the need for a David Attenborough commentary just for this moment. "Hey," you say, your voice sounding groggy, this being the first time you've spoken all morning.

“Hey, kid, just got up?” he asks, shifting his legs off the sofa to make room for you. See? Nothing to be scared of.

"Yeah, kinda," you reply, sliding into the space next to Bro and realizing that it’s actually a pretty small space. You can’t help brushing your legs against Bro’s and bumping shoulders, which you didn’t yesterday. You wonder why the sofa feels so small today and then you see Lil’ Cal taking up about a third of the sofa. Great.

“Hey Bro, could you budge up a little?” You ask, nudging him with your elbow.

“No, then I’d be takin’ up Cal’s space,” he says, not even bothering to look at you. "Hey Lil Cal, could you budge up a little?" You ask the inanimate puppet; he doesn't reply. You huff and pout like a five year old, which earns a sideways glance and a snigger from Bro. 

Cal then continues to take up the largest amount of space on the sofa while you and Bro are squashed together like sardines in a can. You have a feeling Bro did this on purpose. You also have a feeling that Bro isn’t going to stop his little shenanigans; well, two can play at that game.

You make sure to keep your leg pressed up against his, and you kind of lean your shoulder against his, trying to push him over a bit. Without looking at you, Bro does the same, and you find yourself in something like a passive aggressive sofa war with him. 

You put more force on his leg, digging your knee into his thigh, and he does the same to you. You elbow him in his side and he retaliates with a pinch to your upper arm. You still refuse to look at each other. 

He pinches you again really hard and you yelp in pain, “Fuck!” You turn to glare at him and he just smirks.

“Is somethin’ wrong?” he asks innocently, a confused look crossing his face. You stick out your tongue childishly and he does the same, but replaces it with a crooked smile which makes your heart leap, and you’re stuck between wanting to punch or kiss it off.

You decide the former is more appropriate and smack him in the face playfully. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt but Bro pretends to howl in pain and holds his hand to his cheek, wiping away imaginary tears. You snigger and before you even realize what is happening, Bro has his hands on your shoulders and you’re both tumbling off the sofa. You land with a thump, only making the two of you laugh harder.

When you finally calm down and try to get up, you realize Bro hasn’t let go of you. His hands are still on you, pinning you to the ground. You look up and see his amber eyes watching you, his shades must’ve fallen off when you fell. His face is only a few inches away from yours and he isn’t smiling anymore. Bro leans his face down to yours and... licks you! Your eyes widen and your face contorts in disgust, “Yuck! Bro! What the fuck?”

You push him off you and he rolls on the ground in fits of laughter. You sit up and frown at him disapprovingly but when he faces you he just starts laughing even more. You get up and flop down on the sofa, kicking Lil’ Cal off, “See? How’d you like that?” you say, stretching your legs out.

Bro pouts, “No need to take it out on Cal,” he says, hugging the puppet to his chest. 

You look at him again and can’t help but smile, “You’re disgusting.”

He snorts and sits Lil’ Cal on a chair and then walks over to the sofa, where you’re lounging over the whole thing. Bro makes a motion with his hand, “Come on.”

You ignore Bro and watch the TV intently. Bro glares at you for a few seconds and then shrugs and sits on your legs. 

“Ow!” You whine, even though it doesn’t hurt. He smiles sweetly at you and pushes down on your legs, making you extremely uncomfortable. “Bastard,” you grumble.

 

A few hours of watching cartoons later, you start to get a little hungry. You ignore it for a while because you’re pretty sure the Strider kitchen doesn’t stock anything that isn’t fruit loops or apple juice anyway, oh, and you saw some beef jerky stashed somewhere too. Plus, Dave told you not to go searching through the cupboards last time you were here. 

Unfortunately, you only manage to resist a few more minutes before your stomach gets the best of you, “Is there anything to eat?” 

Bro grunts and nods his head in the direction of the kitchen, “If ya can find somethin’ you can have it.”

You get up and head toward the kitchen, stumbling over a few smuppets, which are Bro’s weird puppet porn sex toy things, you’re not really sure what they are, but there’s a lot of them strewn about the apartment. 

You reach the kitchen and, sure enough, the only things you can see are some out of date fruit loops, some old beef jerky and boxes of apple juice. You frown, why apple juice? You were always more of an orange juice man yourself. You go to open the fridge but remember what Dave said, you didn’t really know if the fridge counted as a cupboard or not. You decide to risk it for a biscuit.

You open the fridge door and it happens to be full of... fireworks. Okay. You shut the fridge door and huff; did you really expect anything else? You turn your attention to the cupboards, Dave didn’t tell you not to look in them this time, and to be fair, you are living here now. What could be more dangerous than fireworks anyway? 

You reach up to the cupboard door and pull the handle, you open it fully and suddenly a loud clattering noise fills your ears, before you realise what happened, you feel a sharp pain in your knee. You look down and find that the knee of your jeans is cut open and is quickly being stained with red. Shit, that’s blood! You see about ten swords and other sharp objects lying on the ground and some still in the cupboard. Wow, you should listen to Dave more often. 

“Bro...” You say, frozen in place and not really knowing what to do, “Bro!” You shout, when he doesn’t come to your rescue immediately. 

“What?” He groans, and you hear the sofa creak as he gets up. You must’ve sounded pretty urgent to make him move so quickly. 

He appears at the doorway and as soon as he sees the open cupboard he seems to know what happened. He rushes over to you and drops to the ground, examining your wounded knee. He removes his shades and places them on the counter, “Shit, kid,” he prods your knee and you hiss, “didn’t Dave tell ya not to go lookin’ through the cupboards?”

Bro gets up and goes into the other room. You hear some shuffling sounds and Bro is by your side again. Without warning, he lifts you up and puts you over his shoulder, “You’ve gotten a bit heaver since last time,” he grunts. 

You smack him on the back and mutter a few protests but otherwise don’t put up much resistance as he carries you into his bedroom and drops you onto his bed. You’ve never been in Bro’s room before, and it’s not really like you imagined; there’s a few smuppets, but not as many as you’d expected, there are some Jim Henson movie posters, a huge TV that almost takes up one whole wall, a massive movie and game collection, a bookshelf stacked with interesting-looking books and a pile of robot parts. 

Bro tries to roll up the leg of your jeans but when he tries to get it past your knee it becomes too painful and you tell him to stop.

“I’ve got to get it off somehow, John.” You shake your head. He huffs but then he seems to have an idea, “Actually, it would be easier to just cut it off anyway. You don’t mind do ya?” You look down at your jeans – they’re covered in blood and already cut up from the swords that fell down. You shake your head again.

Bro picks up the pair of scissors he’d brought in with the bandage and antiseptic and begins to cut off the leg of your jeans. He cuts just to about your lower-thigh and sets aside the messy jean leg. You can see the cut fully now and it’s worse than you’d thought. 

“You might need to go to a hospital for this,” Bro says, looking genuinely concerned. You frown, looking at your knee; it does look pretty bad, but you’d rather Bro give it a shot before you get sent to hospital. 

The pain is starting to get worse as the initial shock wears off and you can feel tears begin to well up in your eyes. No, you will not cry in front of Bro. No, no no.

Yes, you will cry in front of Bro. The tears begin to spill over and run down your cheeks and you quickly lift up your hand to wipe them, but Bro beats you to it; he brushes his rough thumb across your cheek and rests his other hand on your knee. You meet his eyes and his usual blank expression is gone, he looks genuinely distressed, and you know you shouldn’t be thinking this, but he looks pretty fucking adorable to you. You mumble a half-assed apology for crying under your breath and laugh at yourself; you must look ridiculous. "Hey, don't worry about it, kid. That shit looks pretty painful, I'd be crying if I were you too," you get the feeling he's lying, but it makes you feel better anyway. Sighing, Bro looks down at your knee again. “Well, I’ll give it a go for ya, kid, but we’ll see what Dave says when he gets back.”

You frown, “What would Dave know about this kind of stuff?” 

“He used to work at a tattoo and piercing place down the road, I know it’s not exactly the same thing, but I’m pretty sure he had to take some kind of first aid workshop,” Bro says, smiling when he sees your eyes widen. Dave only turned eighteen a few months ago, how has he already done all this stuff? And how did he even get qualified to work in a tattoo parlour, he’s been at school? The mysteries of Dave Strider, and actually just Striders in general. You decide to interrogate Dave later.

“Okay, whatever,” you let Bro poke around at your leg and work his magic. You then remember Dave telling you his brother worked in a tattoo shop about a year after you started talking on Pesterchum. “Wait, didn’t you used to work in tattoo place too?”

Bro smiles, “Yeah, but you didn’t have to take all the safety precautions back then like ya do now, y'know?”

“Oh,” you say. He says back then as if it was so long ago; wasn’t Bro only like in his late twenties or something? And then another question pops into your head, “Bro, how old are you?”

His smile stays in place, but it seems forced, and so does the small laugh that comes next, “Old enough.”

You can tell you’ve hit a nerve, but you can’t let this one go, “Oh, come on. You can’t be older than thirty,” you push.

His smile disappears and is replaced by what would be the Strider poker face if he were wearing his shades, but it doesn’t really work the same without them, “I’m thirty-seven, John,” he says flatly, eyes on the ground. 

Your eyes widen but you try not to look too taken aback for Bro’s sake. Thirty-seven! That’s about ten more years than you had him down for. You actually feel kind of flattered that a thirty-seven year old has been flirting with you, even though you know it shouldn't. 

Your thoughts are interrupted by the sound of Bro clearing his throat. He pats your knee, which makes you wince, and gets up, “There ya go, kid, all done.”

He goes to walk out of the room until you stop him, “Um Bro, I kind of can’t walk here, could you like, help me up or something?” You say, embarrassed of being so helpless, but more embarrassed of being crippled in Bro’s bed. 

Bro stops in the doorway for a moment, probably trying to figure out what to do with you. He seems to make up his mind and walks back over to the bed where you’re sitting, “You can just chill in here and I’ll put a movie on for ya or somethin’, even one of those shitty Nic Cage ones you made me watch with you last time you were here,” he grins.

You shake your head, “Nah, I don’t really watch them much anymore,” you got over your love of shitty movies about a year ago or something, “how about you pick one and you can stay here and watch it with me?” You say, knowing the risk you’re taking, but that’s just how you are, you live on the edge. 

Bro looks at you and then the bed, knowing what you mean. He cocks his head to the side slightly and looks at you, his eyebrows knitting together, “You’re really confusing me ya know, kid. One minute you’re actin’ like the protagonist from some shitty slice-of-life anime, and then the next you’re askin’ me to snuggle up in bed with ya all nonchalant and shit, what do you want me to do?” 

You frown, Bro’s right; you’ve spent most of your time here so far acting like a stuttering idiot, and for a moment there you thought the tables had turned, but it was clear now that Bro had just been trying to back off a little while he fixed your leg. He had been trying to give you a chance to back out when he told you his real age, but you obviously didn’t take it. When you think about the way you’ve acted around him recently, you know you must be sending very mixed signals. But, to be honest, you haven’t really been taking this as seriously as you should be. Bro is a thirty-seven year old man and you’ve only just finished high school; he’s obviously going to want a little more than a bit of flirty banter. Not to even mention the fact that he’s Dave’s older brother and parental guardian and you live with them both together (not that Dave is actually in the house much). You know there'd be hell to pay if Dave ever suspected anything between the two of you. 

Bro looks disappointed when you don’t answer straight away, but waits for you to think. You really want to just see where this takes you, nobody said that Bro wanted to get into a serious relationship; you both just wanted to have a bit of harmless fun, right? It’s not like you're a virgin or anything either, although you had only been with girls so far, how hard could it be with a guy (excuse the pun)? Plus, nobody even said anything about having sex yet anyway, woah John, don’t get too ahead of yourself. 

You move your eyes from the ground to meet Bro’s, “I don’t know,” you say, being perfectly honest with him and yourself. 

Bro’s face sinks and he nods once, “Okay, kid, well tell me when ya make up your mind.”

He turns to walk back out but you stop him again, “No wait,” he turns back to face you, “just stay,” you say, giving him what you hope is puppy dog eyes. 

He lets out an exasperated sigh and stands in the doorway, “You sure?” He says. You nod. 

He walks over to you, placing one arm around your shoulders and one under your knees, lifting you up. He places you gently so you’re lying on his bed and props your head up with a pillow; he then pulls the covers over you and tucks you in like your dad used to do when you were little. You feel really weird thinking about that now.

He hops over some smuppets to get to his DVD shelf and goes through some titles, none of which entice you much, “Fussy lil’ kid, aren’t ya?” he says, frowning at you.

You chuckle, “Just put whatever you want on then.”

“No, you have to enjoy it,” he snaps, turning back to the shelf. 

“I honestly don’t mind, just shove on anything.”

“Fine, I’ll make it a surprise,” he says, picking a movie up, “oh, you’re gonna looooove this one.”

You snort and watch Bro put in the movie and press a load of buttons on a remote. The screen comes on and you see the DVD menu. Apparently you and Bro are watching Labyrinth; you should’ve known it’d have some form of puppet in. 

Bro flashsteps back over to his bed, where you’re lying comfortably among a sea of covers, pillows, and the odd smuppet. He jumps into the other side of the bed and scrambles under the covers with you; you’re pretty close to each other but, to your disappointment, he makes sure to leave a gap between the two of you so you’re not touching. Bro presses play and the movie starts with that animated owl and a David Bowie song.

To be honest, you’ve seen this movie about a thousand times and you kind of know most of the words by heart now; you love it but by the time Magic Dance has finished, you’re beginning to find it a little boring. However, you just happen to have someone way more exciting a few inches away from you. 

You peer over the blankets at Bro, who must’ve put his shades back on sometime during the movie. You thought he left them in the kitchen earlier while he was attending to your knee, and he hasn’t left the room to get them. He must have some spare pairs hidden in his room or something stupid like that. 

You snort and he looks at you, raising an eyebrow. You just smile and shake your head, to which he replies by sticking out his tongue and smiling. How can someone who intimidates you so much be this cute? It’s seriously like Bro covers all angles of attractiveness; he’s even got the forbidden love thing down pat, being your best friend’s brother and a whole twenty years older than you. It’s not fair. 

You grin back and kick him playfully under the covers, making him chuckle and kick you back. Bro moves onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow and looking over his shades at you. His face has turned serious now and you wait for him to say something.

As he opens his mouth to speak, you hear the door slamming open and then slamming shut again. Oh shit, that’ll be Dave. You scramble as far away from Bro as you can get and you nearly tumble off the bed in the process. 

Bro doesn’t move though, and you hiss at him, “Brooooo!” He cocks his head to the side and shrugs, ‘what’. 

“Asshole,” you mutter, scowling at him. He grins but you’re in no mood to reciprocate. 

You here some clattering and shuffling coming from various parts of the apartment and you silently panic. You’d get up and distance yourself from Bro if you weren’t practically crippled in his bed. 

It feels like forever until Dave calls out, “Yo, John!” And you stay silent, trying to figure out how to escape from Bro’s room without Dave noticing.

It’s too late: Dave is poking his head into Bro’s room and when he sees you virtually snuggled up underneath the covers with Bro on the bed, he takes his head straight back out. You hear heavy footsteps and a door, which you assume is Dave’s bedroom door, slamming closed. 

“Oh shit,” Bro sniggers, poking your side. 

You glare at him, “Shut up.” Oh shit.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ooooh drama

You are now Bro Strider, not that you ever weren’t. You’ve been Bro Strider since you became a bro seventeen years ago. Your real name is Dirk, but nobody calls you that. Nobody. 

You shuffle under the covers, with Egbert next to you. He’s glaring at you, and you’re sniggering uncontrollably at him. You suppose you shouldn’t be finding this funny, after all, Dave is your bro and you’re going to get in as much shit as John is. 

“It’s not funny!” John hisses, poking your side, “what do we do?”

“I dunno kid, what can we do?” You say, almost serious now.

“Well how about you help me out of this stupid bed so I can sort shit out with Dave?" 

“Excellent idea,” you say, pushing away the mountain of bed covers and standing up. You scoop John up like a groom holding their bride and carry him into the living room. He punches your back all the way to the sofa where you plop him down a little roughly. He scowls at you. "I didn't mean carry me, you asshole." 

You stand around almost awkwardly for a bit before taking yourself off to the kitchen to, like, clean or something. You rummage through your fridge which, to the untrained eye, is full of fireworks, but you and Dave both know that there is, in fact, stashes of Pocky, KitKats and tubs of Chinese food hidden in there somewhere. You dread the day that John figures this out too. 

You grab some Pocky and head out, but before you reach the kitchen door you hear Dave’s raised voice, “What the fuck do you think you’re playing at, Egbert?” There's a reply but it’s too quiet to hear. You tuck yourself away behind the door and peep through the gap where the hinges attach the door to the wall. 

John is still sitting on the sofa where you dumped him, and Dave is standing halfway between the sofa and his bedroom door. He looks calm as ever – damn, you taught that kid well – but you can tell by the tone of his voice that he’s pissed. 

“Yeah right, okay. For one: my bro never lets anyone in his room unless he’s intending to fuck ‘em, and two-,” Dave is cut off by something John is saying, and you see John pointing at his knee. Dave walks closer to where John is sitting, but still keeps his distance, “well why were you in there snugglin’ under the blankets? It’s not even cold for fuck’s sake.” You hear Dave’s voice crack a little and you feel a pang of guilt. 

You know Dave likes John. That’s the reason he invited John to live with the two of you in the first place. Sure they were ‘best bros’. Pffffffft. You know for a fact that Dave has wanted them to be more than that since the first time John visited, and probably even before that. It’s just that so have you, even though you told yourself you didn’t for years because, let’s face it, he was 14/15 and that would make you a huge creep. 

Suddenly, Dave turns on you. It just so happens that you weren’t as well hidden as you’d thought. 

“And you,” he points at you accusingly, narrowing his eyes behind his shades, “you sick bastard, you knew what you were doing. John’s the same age as me you fucking bastard!” Dave finally raises his voice, and it’s surprisingly scary. 

You raise your eyebrows but don’t say a word back, preparing for the rest of Dave’s onslaught.

“Nothing to say, huh?” Dave asks incredulously, and you notice his fists balled at his sides, knuckles almost white, “You know John is underage too, right?”

John shouts from the sofa in the other room, “We didn’t even do anything, Dave!”

Dave continues to glare at you while saying loudly so John can hear, “Well it’s fucking lucky I came home at the time I did, eh? Don’t wanna come home to the two of you going at it like rabbits.”

You snort and you have the feeling it was the wrong thing to do because Dave looks like he’s about to murder you, but instead he lowers his voice to almost a whisper so John can’t hear, “You know I like him, you asshole.”

“Of course I know; I gave you so many chances to make a move on him but you didn’t because you’re a fucking pansy, so now I get a chance,” you do feel a little guilty, but all’s fair in love and war, right? 

“Just fuck off bro,” Dave hisses, turning and storming away like a sulking child. 

You peer into the living room to see John glaring at you through his glasses, clearly expecting you to give some kind of consolation or something, but you just shrug. He huffs and grabs the remote, turning on the TV. The screen flickers to life and John quickly switches to Cartoon Network, where Adventure Time is playing. 

“He’ll get over it,” you say, flopping down next to John on the sofa. John grunts in reply, staring intently at the TV. 

You sigh, “What do you want me to say to him, John? I told him the truth… And it’s not like it was all my fault.”

“Yeah, I know. I-,” he cuts off mid-sentence and you wait for him to continue. He doesn’t, so you raise you eyebrows at him in question. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, shaking his head. 

You look at him closely, watching the way his jet black hair falls gently back into place; it’s oddly fascinating to you. You spend about twenty minutes on your hair every morning to get it to look half as good as John’s, and you know for a fact John does nothing but comb his fingers through it in the morning because you both share a bathroom.  
John catches you staring at him and you cough into the back of your hand and look away quickly. He snorts, kicking you, “Creep.”

You and John spend the rest of the day watching Cartoon Network and cooking shows; John decides he’s going to teach you to cook. Much to John’s disappointment, though, Dave doesn’t come out of his room for the rest of the day, but when John finally goes to bed, you can hear the two of them talking, so the situation can’t be too bad after all, you decide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry i havent had time to write this and i kind of cut it off short ;-;
> 
> its just that im really busy with school stuff at the mo so i dont even know if i'll keep working on this? i guess if you guys like it i will but yeah, it wont be for a while anyway


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dave stop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh wow i think it's been about a year since i last updated but yeah. i've had this sitting around for ages unfinished and i just finished it. dammit dave

You are now John Egbert.  What are you talking about?  You know who you are, idiot. 

When you finally work up the courage to face Dave after having sat with Bro watching TV all day, you find, to your surprise and relief, that Dave isn’t half as pissed off as you’d expected him to be.  In fact, he seems relatively calm and maybe even a bit on the chipper side.  Of course, you can’t really tell too much because of his dumb giant-ass shades.  You really hope you’re right, though.

“Hey, Dave,” you say with a wary smile and a small wave of your hand, kind of like a peace offering.  Sort of.

“Hey,” he replies in a kind of neutral tone.  The trademark Strider tone.

“Sooo… about earlier,” you begin.

“Don’t worry about it, John.  If you say there’s nothing going on between you and Bro, I’ll trust you.  Let’s leave it at that.” 

You want to just leave it at that, but it’s not entirely true.  There is _something_ going on between you and Bro, even if it’s not exactly what Dave is thinking of.  You think telling him would hurt him more than lying would hurt your conscience though, so you decide to keep quiet about it for now.  You promise yourself that you’ll definitely talk to him about it when you find the right words; you just can’t seem to find a good way to tell him right now. 

Before you can try to make small talk, Dave shuts down his laptop, which he was sitting cross-legged on his bed with when you came in, and flops down into his pillow.  He lays there, face-down, for a few seconds and then flips himself over and turns off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.  Dave’s room is always very dark, because he has those black-out blinds made for vampires and people who wear sunglasses indoors. 

You do the same and lay on your bed in a starfish-position.  It’s so hot that you don’t even bother pulling the duvet over yourself.  You try to think of something to say to Dave, anything really, just to break the silence and distract you from your guilty conscience, but you can’t think of anything at all.  After about five minutes Dave starts snoring anyway, so you close your eyes and let your thoughts drift. 

 

You wake up the next morning feeling a bit groggy; you’re not really a morning person to be quite honest anyway, but you feel unusually lethargic this morning.  You walk into the kitchen because, naturally, food is the first thing on an Egbert’s mind.  You remember the cupboard incident from yesterday just before you embark on your quest for a bowl of cereal and decide you might go wake Bro so he can tell you where the edible things are kept. 

You knock on Bro’s door loudly, because you know he’s a deep sleeper from last time you stayed here.  He doesn’t answer right away; he leaves you hanging for about a minute before he comes to the door.  He looks like he’s been awake for a while, and here you thought _you_ were the first one up. 

“What’s up, sugar?” He says smoothly, giving you a lopsided grin.

You roll your eyes, “Please never call me that again.”

“Okay, pumpkin,” he replies.  What an idiot.

“Anyway, I’m hungry, and I can’t seem to find food around here without injuring myself, so I need your help.”

“There’s no cereal by the way, if that’s what you were after,” he says, leading the way to the kitchen, “however,” he grabs a box from the top of the fridge, where nobody but him could reach, “there are Pop Tarts.”  He waves the box in front of you and you can see that they’re blueberry flavour.  They’ll do. 

After you and Bro both eat your very nutritious breakfast, you decide to make this a slightly more productive day and practice a new piano song you’ve been trying to learn.  It just so happens that Dave has a pretty good keyboard in the living room and he said you could use it anytime you liked.  The song is called Raindrop Prelude by Chopin and you really love it.  After a while of playing it you almost have it perfect and you feel like weeks of practice are finally paying off.

You are so absorbed in playing the song that you don’t notice Bro watching you play.  When you do, though, you feel a little embarrassed; you don’t know why. 

“Stop watching me, you’re making me nervous,” you say, frowning at Bro. 

“Hey don’t mind me, kid.  I’m just standing here wishing I was half as talented as you.”

You narrow your eyes, “Hmmm,” you stand up, “anyway, I’m finished now.”

Bro stares at you, or at least in your direction (because you can’t really tell with the shades) for a while and you start to feel uncomfortable, but before you can say anything, he grabs your hand and pulls you to him.  He leans his head right down to your ear and whispers, “Hey, wanna do something fun?”

You swallow hard and wonder, somewhat hopefully, what he means, “Maybe?”  He grins, and before you know what’s happening he has you pinned up against the wall with his breath warm on your neck.  Your heart is beating rapidly and you think it might just burst out of your chest.  You close your eyes and wait for whatever is coming next but nothing seems to be happening.  You look at Bro and see that his shades are gone and he’s just staring at you with a small smile.  “What?” You ask, slightly annoyed that he’s just teasing you again.

“You looked so damn cute just then,” he says, but before you can reply with anything witty he kisses you hard.  He pulls away after about five seconds to see your reaction and starts to say something, but before he can even finish a word you stop him by grabbing both sides of his face and kissing him again.  All you can think about is how lucky you are that you didn’t just head butt him in the chin. 

You break away after a few seconds when you remember that Dave is just a few meters away, behind a wall, hopefully asleep.  “Bro, I don’t think we should be doing this,” you say, nodding in the general direction of Dave’s room.

Bro frowns, “But he’s asleep.”

“I know… that’s not what I mean.  Didn’t you see how upset he was yesterday?” You sigh and mentally slap yourself, as if you weren’t just as enthusiastic as Bro was. 

“Hey, get down off your high horse, kid, you kissed me back,” Bro says, as if reading your thoughts.

“I know!  I’m not saying I didn’t like it, I did…” You trail off.

Bro’s face softens and he sighs too, “I’m sorry.  I know Dave is your best friend and you don’t want to hurt him, I just wish I was as good as you.”

You reply with a nod and sit down on the sofa, avoiding eye-contact with Bro.  You can feel your face heating up with embarrassment and you start to get annoyed with yourself.  Why did you stop?  You really, _really_ , regret stopping.  God damn it. 

Bro sits down next to you with a loud thud and you try your hardest not to look at him.  After a few seconds you can feel him fidgeting beside you; crossing and uncrossing his legs, organising pillows and smuppets, leaning on the arm, not leaning on the arm.

“Oh my _god_ , would you _stop_?” You say, forgetting you’re supposed to be avoiding eye-contact and glaring at him.

“Hah! You looked at me!” Bro says with a smirk.

“I wasn’t even supposed to be not-looking at you,” you lie, feeling an involuntary smile coming on. 

“Liar,” he says, poking your side.  You grin and twist away from his finger unsuccessfully.

“Stop,” you snicker, karate-chopping his arm, “don’t make me John-chop you.”

“What the heck is a John-chop? Sounds lame, bring it,” Bro laughs, poking you wherever he can, “I’ll eat you for dinner, kiddo.” 

“Loser,” you roll off the sofa, away from Bro, and lay on the floor for a bit until you sober up.  You look up at Bro, who is upside down from your position, and make an ‘L’ sign with your hand on your forehead.  Bro huffs. 

You lay like that for a while without saying anything until, finally, Bro says something.  “I liked it too, you know.”  You don’t say anything back.  You just continue lying on the floor in silence, thinking about what Bro just said.  After another few minutes, you hear Bro sigh and you sit up to look at him. 

“I’m sorry we stopped,” you say, plucking up your courage.  You even look him in the eye this time. 

“There’s no need to be sorry, John.  I don’t want to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to do,” he says.

“But I do!” you say, sitting up straighter, “…want to, I mean.”  You sigh, “Stop acting like you’re the Big Bad Wolf and I’m Little Red Riding Hood, for god’s sake.  You’re not pressuring me into anything; I’m not some little kid that you’re taking advantage of, you know.”

“Little Red Riding Hood… I like it,” Bro smirks.

“Seriously.”

“Okay, seriously,” Bro says, with an actual serious expression, “I don’t think you’re a little kid, okay?  I’m just making sure you actually want to do this and that I’m not, like, some kind of weird, creepy old man who keeps trying to get his little brother’s best friend into his bed.”

“Actually you haven’t tried,” you point out.

“It’s just the expression, John.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Before you can say anything back, you hear a bedroom door open and some lazy footsteps coming from the hall.  It’s Dave.

“Yo, Dave,” Bro says, nodding in Dave’s direction.

“Bro,” Dave nods back. 

“Good afternoon, Dave,” you say.

“Good morning,” Dave replies. 

Dave continues on his way to the kitchen, but just before he reaches the door, he stops.  “Bro… where are your shades?”

“Uh,” Bro replies, searching his pockets until he pulls something out, “Here they are,” he waves them in the air for Dave to see.

Dave glares at him, “Funny.  I never see you without them on.”

“Well maybe I’m becoming immune to sunlight.  Finally, I’m free from the curse!”

“Okay then,” Dave says, still glaring daggers at Bro. 

You laugh nervously, “Ahh, well, I was just showing Bro a new magic trick, but he couldn’t see very well with his shades on, sooo… I told him to take them off!”

“Makes sense.  Although he’s always been able to see perfectly fine with them before.  Even watches movies with them on.  Might want to get those replaced, Bro,” Dave says in a low tone, obviously not buying a word of it, but heading into the kitchen nevertheless.

Damn it.   

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bro and his guilty conscience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry this is such a short chapter... and doesn't really have anything great in it. its just kind of preparing for the next chapter

Being the eldest Strider is hard.  This John thing, you really want it to happen, and now you know he wants it to happen too.  The problem is, you can’t seem to look your little brother in the eye.  You’ve always said that Striders stick together; everyone else comes and goes.  That’s what you and Dave have always counted on. 

It’s been two days since you kissed John; and he kissed you back.  You can’t stop thinking about it.  But every time your little brother looks at you and turns away, you feel a tiny pain in your chest that keeps getting less tiny every time it happens.  You know that you must be the worst brother ever. 

You also feel extra bad because you’ve been avoiding John since then too.  He knows it.  You know he knows it.  You tell yourself that John might just be better off with Dave, someone his own age.  You know he definitely would.  However, being the selfish person you are, you also want John all to yourself. 

“Bro!”  John shouts from the living room, “wanna play some Hatsune Miku Diva Project?”

You scoff, “No!” You yell back, “Play your shitty weeaboo games by yourself!” You really, _really_ want to play that shitty weeaboo game with him. 

“Suit yourself, old man!” John shouts back.  The ‘old man’ hit you pretty hard.  That was harsh.  John most likely knows he hit a nerve with that one, that was probably his intention, you think. 

This is how it’s been for the last two days.  You can tell that John is starting to get pissed off at you.  He has a right to be, you guess.  You kind of just started avoiding him without any warning.  It was just the looks you kept getting from Dave.  Every time the two of you passed each other in the hall or in the kitchen, he’d just stare at you through his shades and quickly turn away, it felt like you’d been stabbed right in the chest. 

On the third night, you decide to order Indian food.  You’d holed yourself up in your room all day, stewing in your guilt and too many bed sheets for a hot day in the middle of Summer.  You knock on Dave’s door and ask what he wants.  It’s a moment or two before he answers but you hear “Korma and garlic naan” in a monotone voice.  You’re about to leave to find John when you hear Dave say, “Oh, and John wants Tandoori Masala with Peshwari naan.”  You forgot they shared a room and sigh.

“Got it,” you reply through the door. 

After you order the food you slump down on the sofa, feeling like all the energy has just been sucked out of you.  It’s funny considering you do pretty much nothing all day, every day.  Oh the joys of being a millionaire.  You have pretty much all you’d ever want and more (except for food, of course) but you feel like there’s no purpose to your life.  You used to DJ sometimes, for friends, just for fun, but you soon stopped doing that for whatever reason.  The truth is; you just became unbearably lazy.  It took a lot out of you when you broke up with your last boyfriend, Jake.  That was about three years ago now.  You never really got over it.  You got over _him;_ sure, that wasn’t the problem.  But you never really got over being alone. 

Now that you think about it, you actually broke it off with Jake not long after you first met John.  When you think about it like that, you make yourself sick.  You know it wasn’t _really_ because you had a thing for the Egbert kid.  There was a legitimate reason for why the relationship had ended.  You’re just beating yourself up over absolutely nothing. 

Before you know it, you hear the doorbell ring to tell you that food has arrived.  You pay the bill and when you turn around, Dave and John are waiting on the sofa expectantly.  You notice how Dave has made sure to sit next to John, even though there are two other large, identical sofas.  John slouches on the sofa and drums his hands on his belly, “Lay it right here,” he sings. 

You bring over the food and do as John requests, placing the portion of food on John’s slightly chubby belly.  He swears and removes it to put it on the table, “The box is hot, ah, fuck.”

You snort, “Dumbass.” 

After you all finish your food you notice the silence in the room, making the air feel heavy.  You look at John and his eyes meet yours but he looks away quickly.  You struggle to find something to break the silence but no words come to mind. 

“Welp.  That was nice, thanks Bro,” John finally says, smiling but not looking you in the eyes.  You wonder if he thinks he is but your shades are just too dark to see.  They are pretty dark, to be honest. 

“No problem, Johnny-boy,” you say, slapping your knee and standing up.  Dave shoots you a look, but you ignore it and take the empty plates and boxes out to the bin in the kitchen. 

When you return you find that John and Dave are no longer sitting on the sofa.  You hear laughing coming from the bedroom, making you feel kind of lonely.  You decide to sulk it off in your bedroom until you drift off to sleep.   

 

The next morning, you feel like your head is being beaten by a caveman with a club.  The pain makes you groan loudly and squish the duvet into your face, as if that would help or something.  It doesn’t.  You get up and go to the kitchen; the feeling of your bare feet on the cold tile floor feels really nice and refreshing for some reason.  It’s probably because you’re boiling.  You pop some aspirin from the cupboard and when you check your temperature it’s really hot.  Way hotter than it should be.  Shit, should you call a doctor?  Nah, you should call John.

“Yo, John,” you shout, knocking on Dave’s bedroom door, “You up?  Get up.”

You hear a door open down the hall.  It’s the bathroom, with a half-naked John standing in the doorway, combing a hand through his wet hair like he’s in a men’s shampoo commercial.  God fucking damn it, Egbert.

“What?  Stop shouting, you’ll wake Dave.”

“I think I have a fever,” you say solemnly, taking a few steps in his direction, away from Dave’s door. 

“Oh, well why do you need me then?” He asks you, “Shouldn’t you call some kind of professional; a doctor, for example?”

“John, don’t be stupid.  It’s just a fever.  All I need is a few cold flannels and a cute nurse to tuck me into bed,” you wink.  Dave’s asleep and John’s half-naked and dripping wet in front of you; you can’t help yourself.

John sighs, “Better find yourself a cute nurse then, huh?  I’m sure Dave will volunteer.”

“Oh no, that’s why I called _you_ , of course,” you grin, almost forgetting about the pain in your head; or maybe the aspirin was just starting to kick in. 

John scowls at you, “Oh, so what? You ignore me for three days and now you want me to play your dumb little games again? Forget it; I’m really not in the mood.”

You know he’s right.  “I wasn’t ignoring you,” you sigh, “okay, I was a little bit.  It’s just Dave and these stupid sad fucking looks he keeps giving me, making me feel like a failure of a big brother, y’know?”  You take a step closer so you can pretty much feel the hot steam coming off him from the shower, “I’m sorry, I’m an asshole, okay?”

A few seconds later, he smirks, letting you know that you’re forgiven, “I know you are.”   

There’s a few moments before it starts to become awkward and John laughs, “Uh, well, I’m gonna get dressed now.”

You laugh too, “Oh yeah, sorry, kid.”  He closes the door and after a few seconds you knock on it and shout through, “But seriously, I actually do have a fever so I require your services.  Ya don’t have to dress up or anything… although if you’re up for it I do have a few cute costumes that might fit you. Just saying.”

“Bro, just shut up,” he says, but you can hear the smile in his voice.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah... next chapter is johns pov. will he wear the nurse costume?? probably not. sorry bro. 
> 
> also sorry for not writing very often, im very lazy, but i'll try to write the next chapter quickly while im in a writing phase. also if you have any suggestions or things you really want to happen or constructive criticism or whatever, that would be pretty great.
> 
> my tumblr is eiposu.tumblr.com if any of you like cute girls in fancy underwear (cause thats pretty much all it is gomen) so yeah follow me if you want -u-


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